Mass Effect: Among the Ruins
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Just another day on Eos, really...


**Among the Ruins**

The kett were early today.

Pelessaria B'Sayle didn't know how the kett measured time. She doubted it would be in intervals of 27 hours. And she doubted even further if they measured it in minutes, dactals, lessans, or any other measure of time used by a sapient species. Still, they had a timetable of some kind. They came to Eos, they left Eos, they came back to Eos. Sometimes they stayed on Eos, but only as long as it took for a bullet to be put through their heads. Or for them to be impaled by an omni-blade, or choked with a biotic grip, or any other nasty means of dealing death. Point was, there were kett on Eos. Kett killed people, or abducted them, or abducted _and _killed them. And right now, her purpose in life was to kill kett.

"Kett are early today."

She looked at Ryder. "Really? I never would have noticed."

"I'm just pointing it out."

"Oh I see," Peebee said, putting her hands on her hips, and sticking her chest out. "So, you don't trust me to observe that the kett are early? You think I can't see that the kett are early?"

"What? No."

"I bet you don't even think we can take on the kett today."

Ryder, after a pause, murmured, "I didn't say that."

Peebee, after a pause as well, gave her friend a pat. "Nope. Of course you didn't." She headed over to the weapons cache, drawing out a rifle and pistol. "Need anything?"

"You know I'm always good."

Peebee smiled, before looking away from Ryder. "You always are…" She got to her feet and nodded towards the kett dropship that was setting down. "Come on. The kett are early today."

* * *

It was a Remnant site. One of hundreds of thousands, if not millions that covered the surface of Eos. Peebee remembered when she'd first arrived here, on a miserable little corner of a miserable little planet, that even after all this time, was still miserable. Or she was miserable, and she was just projecting, and really Eos was beautiful, and she was the problem, and Goddess, why did she always overthink this crap? It wasn't as if the kett had any problems with the shoot-abduct-exalt-rinse and repeat stuff. The kett were the kett. Kett did what kett had always done, and would always continue to do. At least the Remnant had the excuse of being silent.

Which they were doing now, she thought, as the kett attacked the site. Even now, they went through this routine. They'd land, engage the Remnant, and win at the end. They'd recover Remtech, leave, wait for new Remnant to be built, and repeat the cycle. It was the actions of a hunter-gatherer species spread out over dozens of light years. And even after all this time from making contact with them, somehow, the kett were still able to make more kett.

And as always, the Remnant were able to kill more kett. Hiding behind a rock, Peebee waited for the dance to conclude. Bullets, lasers, shields, shouts, and the humming of robots. It had been boring when it first started, and it was boring now. Oh, sure, the Remnant themselves were fascinating, but she could only study them after they'd been destroyed.

"We could just engage now," said Ryder over the radio.

"What, and miss all the fun?" Peebee picked a nut out of her pocket and began to chew on it. "Nah. Why do that?"

"Because you say that fighting kett is the only thing that gives you meaning these days."

"And? We are going to fight kett. Just at the right time."

"That's not what you said last week. In fact, when I called you reckless, you-"

"Okay Ryder, nice talking to you." Peebee cut the feed and glanced at the outcrop where Ryder was stationed at. There was no sign or sound, but she knew that her friend was still looking down on her. Like some kind of angel or saint from a religion that had originated thousands of years ago in a galaxy millions of light years away.

_And the Goddess is just as absent here as back home, _Peebee thought as the kett finished off the last of the Remnant. _Bitch._

The kett had won. She sighed, made sure her pistol was loaded, and got up from behind her rock. "Hey guys," she called out.

The kett spun round and looked at her. At the blue alien girl walking towards them with her hands in the air. They rushed out from the Remnant site and onto the sand, pointing their rifles at her.

"Kom, de cha? Hech nak wybu!"

She'd turned her translator off, because she no longer cared what they had to say. It was always the same questions – who are you? Why are you here? Are you alone? Or if it wasn't questions, it was orders – get down. Drop your weapon. Surrender. Same old bullshit. Besides, she didn't even need her translator for the kett anymore, as she'd had the time to pick up their language regardless. So, when one of the kett shouted "cen tok," it meant "on the ground!" And when another shouted "pras," it meant "incoming!"

Peebee stood there as the rocket hit the kett, killing half of them, wounding the other half, and sending all of them flying in various directions. She winced, as the wave of heat washed over her, not to mention no small amount of kett guts. In the past, she'd joked that it was a genetic salad, that it wasn't really kett guts splattering over her, but rather the innards of various species. After those guts had ended up in her mouth as she'd made said joke, she'd learnt to stop talking at this point.

"Nice shot," she murmured.

But that she didn't have to remain silent _after _the guts had finished raining down around her.

"You know me," Ryder said. "I aim to please."

"Odd. I thought you aimed at kett." Peebee drew out her pistol. "You can come down though. I got this."

"Of course."

Was Ryder being sarcastic? It was hard to tell. Either way, she got to the business of putting the remaining kett out of her misery. One shot, one kill, starting with those who'd fared better from the rocket than others.

_Bam._

She'd used to deliver catchy one-liners when she'd done this. But "wrecked" didn't really rhyme with "kett," as Ryder had pointed out.

_Bam._

After that, the execution thing didn't really have the same charm it once had.

_Bam._

Not to mention that she knew that no matter how many kett she killed, they'd just keep coming. Morning or night, rain or shine (not that it actually rained on this forsaken planet), all she could do was throw pebbles in the river in the knowledge that it could never be damned.

_Bam._

But, she figured, as she approached the last kett, it was something. Something that a philosopher or sage could conjure up a fancy word for. But, as the kett looked at her, its eyes filled with fear, with the hope that mercy could be shown…

_Bam._

Pelessaria B'Sayle knew that she was neither of those things. And if this made her a murderer, she was fine with that as well.

"Wow," said Ryder. "You did a number on them."

Least she told herself that. She holstered the pistol and looked back at her friend. "You got down here fast."

"Well, what can I say? I had a good maker."

Peebee smiled. "Sure did."

She got to salvaging the kett's gear. K-Tech, as she sometimes called it, but key word being "sometimes." The kett's expertise lay in their genetic engineering, along with their weight of numbers. Guns, armour, grenades, all that – it was useful, but it didn't give her an edge.

"Was it like this when it started?" Ryder asked.

"Hmm?"

"I mean when you first arrived on Eos. I mean, even before the real Ryder showed up and-"

"Stop," Peebee said. "Just. Stop."

Ryder fell silent, and the asari looked at it. "You are real," she said. "Don't forget that."

"I appreciate the sentiment. But real or not, I'm not the first, am I?"

Peebee, after a moment, went back to salvaging the kett's gear.

"By last account, I'm the 1,312th incarnation."

Peebee grit her teeth. "1,313th."

"Close enough."

Peebee didn't answer. Her mind, her memory, were elsewhere. Back when she'd first arrived on Eos. Back when Sara Ryder and her merry crew had arrived, and turned things around. Back when things had been good, before the shit really hit the fan.

319 years ago.

* * *

"You know," Peebee said as they sat by the fire. "When the kett destroy you, and I make the 1,314th incarnation of you, I'm going to make some adjustments."

"Of course. I don't doubt you told my predecessor that as well."

"…asshole." Peebee took a bite of bug-meat, envying the construct before her. It didn't need to sleep, or eat, or shit, or piss, or do any of that nasty stuff that organics had to go through. But, as a floating Remnant drone that had been imbued with artificial intelligence that she'd constantly developed over the centuries, the one named Ryder managed to get the quirks of a sapient lifeform, even if that sapience came from code.

"Do you miss her?" Ryder asked.

Peebee glared at the construct. "_What_?"

"Sara Ryder. The one whom you named me after. The one who arrived her on the _Tempest_, 319 years ago."

"No." She went back to her dinner.

"Body temperature, eye movement, and hand tremor exists otherwise."

"You know about those adjustments?" Peebee asked. "I've got one right now. Though, actually, it's an adjustment I made forty-six years ago."

"Are you going to-"

Peebee pressed a button at her belt, and the construct shut down. "Yes," she murmured, taking one last bite of dinner before tossing it aside. She looked at the construct, lying there on the sand, and gave it a sad look. "She didn't know when to shut up either."

Not that she'd been the only one of course.

She could still remember them. Each of them, over that year of adventure. Of kett, Remnant, angara, and everything else the Heleus Cluster could throw at them. One year…followed by two years of Hell, as the greater kett fleet had arrived at Heleus. 633 years of travelling across Dark Space, one year of uncertainty, one year of hope, two years of watching the kett destroy everything. The Nexus. The arks. The colonies. Two years, until the last stand on this very planet. Fifty klicks west, where Prodromos had once stood. Before a kett base had been built over its ruins. Before the last members of the Initiative had been culled or exalted. By then, most of the crew was dead. The people had looked to their Pathfinder for hope, and received none. And when the time for that last stand came, when people chose to fight or flee into the wastes, or heck, even reach Advent…she'd run.

The last stand, and she'd run. She'd survived. Just like she always had. Like she'd done for over three-hundred years as she watched the last survivors succumb to age, the elements, or the kett. Over three-hundred years, until she was the last Initiative member left on this planet. Heck, likely the last Initiative member in this galaxy. It was almost liberating, really, being the only member of your species left. Meant that you could seize the day. Or…She glanced at the construct. Or salvage Remtech and give it a personality that approximated the one you'd once fought beside. And sometimes give it other names, like Jaal, or Vetra, or even Liam.

She yawned and lay on her back, looking up at the stars. Over three-hundred years, and she knew all the constellations. She'd renamed them more times than she could count, giving them lewder names every time. People said maturity came from age. Way she saw it, age could go into Arse-End. Or Big Dipper. Or Long Pointy. Or-

_Yeah, I'm renaming them._

She managed to get ten minutes out of it before falling asleep. Here. On this planet. Surrounded by ghosts.

Among the ruins.

* * *

_Update (01/02/20): Corrected the "full name" gaff._


End file.
